Distributed Denial of Service Trends Report – Verisign provides a unique view into the attack trends unfolding online for the previous quarter, including attack statistics, behavioral trends and future outlook. (Download Full Report)Verisign has just released its Q1 2015 DDoS Trends Report, providing a unique view into the online distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack trends from mitigations on behalf of, and in cooperation with, customers of Verisign DDoS Protection Services, and the security research of iDefense Security Intelligence Services.

A number of notable observations are made: Verisign mitigated more DDoS attacks in Q1 2015 than in any other quarter in 2014, including seven percent more than Q4 2014. The public sector and financial services industries continued to experience an uptick in attacks, with each constituting 18 percent of total Q1 2015 mitigations. Verisign believes financial services firms and various international governing organizations may be targeted as part of political activism, or hacktivism. In addition, the ready availability and low cost of DDoS toolkits and DDoS botnets-for-hire is making it easier for actors to launch attacks.

Additional highlights of various trends observed in the Q1 2015 DDoS Trends Report:

• Over half of all attacks peaked at more than one gigabit per second (Gbps), 34 percent of attacks peaked between one and five Gbps and nearly 10 percent of attacks peaked at more than 10 Gbps.
• Volumetric DDoS attack sizes peaked at 54Gbps/18 million packets per second (Mpps) for User Datagram Protocol (UDP) floods and 8Gbps/22Mpps for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-based attacks.
• IT Services/Cloud/SaaS was the most frequently targeted industry in Q1, representing more than one third of all Verisign mitigation activity.

See additional highlights from Q1 2015 in the SlideShare presentation below:

As DDoS attacks continue to grow in complexity, it is necessary for security professionals to understand why threat actors are using this increasingly effective form of online attack. The Q1 2015 DDoS Trends Report feature article, “The Many Motivations behind Today’s DDoS Attacks,” takes a look at the history of DDoS attacks, as well as provides a high level overview of attack motivations to help organizations prepare for these disruptive threats.

For more on DDoS trends in Q1 and to access the full Q1 2015 report click here. To read more about Q4 2014 observations, including the increase in DDoS attacks in the public sector, accounting for 15 percent of all mitigations in that quarter, click here.

Q1 2015 DDoS Attack Trends – Verisign has a unique view into DDoS attack trends, including attack statistics, behavioural trends and future outlook. The data presented contains observations and insights about attack size and frequency derived from mitigations enacted on behalf of, and in cooperation with, customers of Verisign DDoS Protection Services, and insights from iDefense Security Intelligence Services, from January–March 2015. (View the full infographic)